Letter to the Editor: NRA gives bad name to country's gun owners

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I want to thank Jim Porter for his very reasonable take on gun control. His thoughts are spot on. As a society, we need to recognize that the 2nd Amendment was written for circumstances and conditions that simply no longer exist, and engage in a realistic discussion about gun ownership that is relevant to the 21st century.

As someone who has grown up with firearms, and has enjoyed target shooting from an early age, I nonetheless cannot fathom the NRA's extremist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Frankly, I find the NRA insulting. I feel they give a bad name to all the reasonable gun owners in this country.

The NRA has done an excellent job of brain-washing our citizenry. They have convinced otherwise intelligent people that the issue of gun rights is an all-or-nothing proposition. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Even if the framers of the Constitution could have conceived of weapons such as modern military-style, fully-automatic assault rifles, large capacity clips and exploding rounds, can any reasonable person honestly believe they would have thought it a good thing for all citizens have access to them? In terms of mid-eighteenth century weaponry, that would be roughly equivalent to saying that all citizens should be able to own their own cannon.

Let's face it people - assault weapons are Weapons of Mass Destruction. There is no reason for the average citizen to have them. The fact that so many of my fellow citizens have become so enamored of owning the capacity for mass destruction is sad and frightening.

And now, in order to protect the contrived "right" to own Weapons of Mass Destruction, the NRA wants our children to go to school in armed camps. Is this really the kind of society we want to live in?